Do Delivery Companies Still Add A Fuel Surcharge?

Fuel surcharges for Atlanta deliver service companies became rampant during the recent economic downturn. During this time, when gas prices reached prices higher than five dollars a gallon, delivery companies found their profit margins shrinking dramatically. Others began to run in the red. This is because the cost of fuel is one of the largest expenses for delivery companies. To help them to stay afloat, and anticipating that the price of fuel would eventually fall back to manageable levels, these companies institutes fuel surcharges.

Although you might see these charges on your statement any more, they are still in place. You might notice them if you check the fine print of your service agreement. These surcharges are set to go in to effect when gas prices reach a certain level. This is to protect the company from the problems they experienced with the last fuel price explosion.

Without this surcharge, many companies would no longer be able to remain in business. The price of fuel would become prohibitive and they would be forced to park their fleets indefinitely. These charges allow them to remain competitive with the larger companies that are better suited to absorbing such a financial hit.

You might wonder why the companies did not just raise their rates to account for the increase in fuel prices. This has happened. However, there was no reason to permanently raise rates to respond to a fuel price crisis that most people understood to be a temporary setback. If the companies raised their rates, they would have left themselves in a bad position to compete for future customers when the fuel process came back down.

Instead, the companies decided to leave their rates alone and add the surcharge. This separated the cost of the temporary economic problem from their regular shipping rates. Businesses where then able to gauge the health of the economy when they saw the surcharges falling off of their bills.

Atlanta delivery service companies are up front about their charges and fees as required by law. Fuel surcharges are no exception to this. If a surcharge is going to be applied to your bill, you should expect the company to inform you of this first. Not doing so could amount to a contract breach by changing the terms of the agreement without your consent. If you see a surcharge that you did not agree too previously, demand for it to be removed.